Friday, December 07, 2012

Why Presidential rhetoric on climate matters

by David Atkins

David Roberts, looking at a takes a look at a recent study on climate change and persuasion which found that personal experience with climate-related phenomena can help change the minds of the mushy middle who haven't decided whether the problem is a serious one, summarizes with the following:

This seems about right. If I could boil it down:

1. Focus on the mushy middle; committed deniers are largely beyond reach.
2. Be opportunistic — make the most of those times when climate chaos makes itself known at a visceral level.
3. Find trusted communicators.

This third one is so key and it’s a huge problem on climate. God bless Al Gore and Bill McKibben and those guys, but they are reaching a fairly circumscribed slice of culture. Storms and the like can unsettle people, leave them open to new or revised information, but even then they will look, not to scientists or activists, but to more familiar, proximate sources of authority and trust. The question on their mind is, “What are people like me supposed to think about things like this?” That’s not a scientific question; it’s not about evidence or argument. It’s about social and tribal connections.

There are, of course, many kinds of communicators that have more cachet with various social groups.

But one of the most important, dare I say "greatest" communicators on the planet would be the President of the United States. He's incredibly influential. Not with a retrograde 35% or so of the American public, but with at least 60% of the rest.

We've already seen recently the power of this very President to affect changes in public opinion on policy. Almost the very moment the President finally came out in full support of marriage equality, support for the position among minorities (particularly African-Americans) shot up substantially.

Rhetoric matters here. Even if the President can't change the votes of Congress through rhetoric, at the very least he can affect public opinion on a subject with as much misinformation and general apathy as climate change.

In just 30 years his legacy will be more determined by this question than by even the economic one.